


Clouds Hide the Sun

by VenomQuill



Series: Stickmin Collection fics [5]
Category: Henry Stickmin Series (Video Games)
Genre: Before Reginald was chief, Gen, Terrence Suave is mentioned, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26964064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenomQuill/pseuds/VenomQuill
Summary: Chief Terrence has been the Toppat Chief for eleven months and fifteen days. Reginald is his second in command, his deputy, his right hand. It's a position that Reginald has been aching to obtain for God knows how long. But dazzling dreams oft hold little weight to reality. The reality of the situation is that being a deputy is hard, especially the deputy to one of the worse leaders in Toppat Clan history.
Series: Stickmin Collection fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983670
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Clouds Hide the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Find it on dA: https://www.deviantart.com/venomquill/art/Clouds-Hide-the-Sun-857835742

The airship was buzzing with life. Like a hive of bees, there was always life. Always honey being produced, always nectar being taken, and pollen spread. Larvae snuggled deep within, the workers buzzing in and out and around.

Down a quiet corridor with gilded portraits with golden nameplates beneath hung straight and perfect, interrupted by the odd window, walked a singular man. His suit was clean and straight and well made. It was black with white ruffles around the front of the shirt mostly hidden by a black jacket and a thin white collar with whispers of yellow and blue embroidery. A stormy gray top hat pressed down on his head. His long, thin, curled mustache matched his matt, chocolate brown hair. The golden chain around his throat connected to a golden dollar sign shone in the light. Blue tourmalines encrusted the front; expensive as heaven and hell to obtain and create, but well worth it, in his opinion. He passed the window, seeing the sky dreary and hanging low with thick cloud cover.

His eyes fell over the different portraits lining the walls. After passing by a window, he found on his left two last portraits. One was of a rather gruff man, a smoking cigar held in his teeth and the light of the camera throwing shadows over the scars that marred him and his slightly ruffled clothes.

_Sir Wilford IV_

Reginald’s eyes passed to the next portrait, the last in the corridor. The man winked into the camera, one hand holding a golden gun with a lackadaisical shrug, a grin one could misconstrue as a smirk on his clean-shaven features. A midnight black top hat with a slightly larger base than top rested snugly on his head.

_Terrence Suave_

Reginald couldn’t meet that big green eye glimmering with mischief. His own golden-brown ones inspected the carpet and wall and door to the vault. It had become a pass time to approach the vault and check through it. Nearly a year ago it started as a job he’d taken off someone else’s hands; inspect the vault and be sure everything was in order. His work would be double, and triple checked. After all, there were few things a thief guarded more closely than his treasure. Reginald could safely say that whatever went into the vault was well documented and well-guarded. Now it had become rather cathartic, finding the only place in the whole airship that wasn’t buzzing with life and noise, and then completing a long, menial task.

Reginald’s actions hadn’t been purely altruistic, at first. He would cut off his own hands before stealing from the vault, of course, but the little voice in his mind had urged him into the job. Borne of his deputyship to Terrence, he learned more of the man than he would have ever done as a subordinate of any other level. He did not check the vault for random misplacements. He didn’t organize the coins and shiny objects and pictures for the sake of a pretty scene. Rather, the stupid little voice in his mind urged him to be sure Terrence was not misplacing little things in the vault.

Terrence did no such thing, so that was a relief.

Reginald started to enter the vault but pulled his hand back. He knew the vault may require a little more organizing; they had gone on a messy raid and just barely escaped–scathed and down a few, but alive. There was nothing positive to show for it, of course. There rarely was, when it came to the chief’s plans.

Mournfully, Reginald thought of the last chief. The man was no-nonsense and _despised_ incompetency. Terrence must have done _something_ to fly under the man’s radar. Perhaps it was excelling at his job; he was very good with sealing deals and manipulating contracts to skew in their favor not enough to arouse suspicion or scald a potential buyer into leaving, but just enough to give the Toppat Clan an edge. But that life had been _boring_ , Terrence had once told Reginald.

 _“Day in and day out, my most important tasks consisted of simple contracts and negotiations. Not even the negotiations themselves, sometimes. Sometimes he’d send someone else,”_ Terrence had puffed one evening as he and Reginald sat in his office. _“But now as chief,_ I _get to plan out the raids. Sir Wilford the Fourth was an excellent chief, and admittedly I am a little sad to see him go. But he trusted me to take over and I did. Oh, come on, take another glass. I haven’t poisoned you, yet.”_ The man had winked and laughed at his own joke; one Reginald had not been over fond of. Thinking back on it, he still wasn’t.

Terrence sure had taken over when Sir Wilford IV went missing. He took over and immediately started trying his best to ram the Clan into the ground. Not only was he risking the lives of his clan members in flashy, nonsensical raids, he was neglecting his other duties as chief. Reginald scurried behind him, catching what the chief carelessly tossed aside. He all but ran the ship himself, though he was thoroughly reminded at every opportunity that he was not the chief. Terrence never let an opportunity pass to remind Reginald of his rank.

 _“Reginald has just been the best deputy,”_ Chief Terrence announced, nudging Reginald as they sat across from a couple of CEOs.

_“You’re a pretty good friend, Reginald. Best second a chief could ask for.”_

_“Ey, Reg! I know you’re only being polite, but the chief pilots the ship, remember?”_

And on and on and _on_. In the man’s first breath was a back-handed compliment, and in the second an order masqueraded as a request to _do his job._ It didn’t matter that Reginald wasn’t allowed to pilot the ship but do be a dear a double check– _fix_ –the autopilot. Reginald was on a break, but did he have some time to help with– _do_ –the organizing of this patrol? He was already fixing a task Terrence had left half finished, but he should hop onto the task he assigned Reginald without his knowledge.

Reginald didn’t complain; he couldn’t. He’d been asking for a high-ranking job ever since he set his eyes on it. Sure, his reasons may not have been completely sincere at first. He was an ambitious man depraved of control. But he loved the Clan, and he would see it set right. He would see jobs accomplished, people working, and the bank account fat. As Sir Wilford IV’s third, Reginald was all that and more. Sir Wilford IV never reminded anyone of their place because they knew their place and they knew his. He had an aura of power, a fierceness that definitely resonated with Red, Reginald’s best and closest friend. Respect that Reginald could not fault. He could follow the man’s orders forever and be happy, though perhaps the ambitious side of him would still squirm and nag at him like a bored puppy. But with Terrence? Reginald was putting every bit of himself into the job and more. He cut his breaks further and he was more attentive, doing the jobs of two people, with vault duty being a glorified excuse for a break.

There came a time, however, when a dysfunction could no longer limp into a passing grade. Yes, the little pig could make his house of straw, and the straw would do its job and keep out the elements, but eventually the straw would fall. Reginald was doing everything he could, and now, hardly a year later, be could feel himself reaching a breaking point. He was tired, honestly. His light sleep was broken more by thoughts keeping him up or little bumps waking him and keeping him awake. Reginald had already deigned a belt necessary, for despite the rich diet the Toppat Clan thrived on, he just couldn’t stop rejecting it some way or the other. He kept himself clean, but the hair of his thin, curled mustache and his once soft hair felt perpetually messy and dull.

But Reginald could not stay here, dwelling in the portrait hall before the vault. He had checked on the vault yesterday; Terrence would just mock his “obsession” with the job were Reginald to stay and enter. He needed to get back to the Bridge and double-check their navigation, check in with Oldmin and Thomas to be sure there were no problems hindering their work, and then he’d need to check on Terrence and get his next workload for the second half of the day. No… for the rest of the day. It was hardly past morning, but it already felt as if Reginald should be heading to bed.

He passed the portraits, his dull eyes not meeting those of his chief or chief previous. But he stopped before the window. A thin beam of sunlight had broken through the thick cloud cover. Yes, Reginald would need to check on the weather report. They weren’t going to have clear skies, but storms should have been out of the picture. Unless their ship was moving in a different direction than the course was yesterday, which could very well be the case.

The single ray of sunlight fell upon the floor and glowed over the wall. Reginald looked out the window. It really was a pretty day outside if cloudy weather could be considered “pretty.” The forest was lush and green beneath them, and the rivers that cut through the landscape shimmered in the muffled sunlight.

Reginald shook himself of his lazy thoughts and moved. The clouds shifted and the ray of light was gone before he could cross it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, just thoughts about Reginald as deputy to Chief Terrence. I imagined it would be a slow build; after all nothing like a revolt or overthrowing happens overnight. Stress that builds slowly like a dripping faucet, its only aid being a bucket to catch it. _Drip... drip... drip..._ quiet, relentless, rhythmic, and monotone so it slowly mutes itself in one's mind. But it's there, always there, adding water to a bucket drop by drop until finally the bucket's full. When the bucket's full, the water can't keep piling but must dribble over. One wrong move and the bucket could tip, the single droplets turning into a torrent that floods the kitchen floor.
> 
> So, it's not the story of Reginald overthrowing Terrence, but he can only go on for so much longer. The idea of Terrence nagging Reginald as a second was partially inspired by "[The Rise of Black Wolf](https://youtu.be/W4TEEYnc0yg)" (scene starts 38:45, technically), and the story itself inspired by "[THSC - VOID - Copperright sketch PMV/animatic](https://youtu.be/yoYleou9dPU)" by Wishing-Well-Artist, and just musings of what went down when Terrence was chucked off the ship. Also, I have this headcanon that Right Hand Man changed his name because names were honestly meaningless to him. But changed it to "Right Hand Man" when he became Chief Reginald's second because that meant something to him.
> 
> I love writing in this style, but I don't do it often. Writing "Different Path, Different Story" takes a lot of energy; like taking a good, long run. It's fun, and I love it, but it really just... drains my energy so it's harder to work on other big projects. But little musings or anecdotes like this, "Remnants of a Friend," and "From Guard to Prisoner" are low energy, like flopping on a living room chair and chugging water until you almost pass out from not breathing. So it's fun, but only on occasion.


End file.
